Omar Ibn Sayid
Excerpts of News articles about Omar Ibn Sayid
On January 27, 1847, The Wilmington Chronicle published an excerpt from the Providence, R. I. Journal, which had been reporting on news from North Carolina. For the full text and more resources on Omar Ibn Sayid, visit the Documenting the South's project.
The excerpt, writes the Wilmington Chronicle, is about "an individual well known in this community, and who, although a slave, is held in high respect and esteem." In a brief biography of Omar ibn Sayid, referred to as Monroe, the Chronicle writes:
He belonged to the Foulah tribe in Africa, who inhabit the region about the sources of the Senegal river. The Foulahs, or Fallatas, are known as the descendants of the Arabian Mahomedans who migrated to Western Africa in the seventh century. They carried with them the literature of Arabia, as well as the religion of their great Prophet, and have ever retained both. The Foulahs stand in the scale of civilization at the head of all the African tribes.
The excerpt, writes the Wilmington Chronicle, is about "an individual well known in this community, and who, although a slave, is held in high respect and esteem." In a brief biography of Omar ibn Sayid, referred to as Monroe, the Chronicle writes:
He belonged to the Foulah tribe in Africa, who inhabit the region about the sources of the Senegal river. The Foulahs, or Fallatas, are known as the descendants of the Arabian Mahomedans who migrated to Western Africa in the seventh century. They carried with them the literature of Arabia, as well as the religion of their great Prophet, and have ever retained both. The Foulahs stand in the scale of civilization at the head of all the African tribes.
The scrap I send you, however, though modern, is genuine. It is not from Mecca, or Medina, or any other Arabian city; nor is there any dispute or doubt about its authorship. In short, it comes direct from the "Old North State," and is the production of an old and superanuated slave. I leave it to you to judge, therefore, if it is not quite as remarkable to find an Arabic scholar under such a guise, as to find a scrap of antiquity deposited on the mouldering shelf of some ancient library, or amidst the ruins of an antique temple.... Is it not a little remarkable, that a man who has not probably heard his vernacular tongue spoken, nor seen it written, for thirty years, except by himself, should now, at the age of three score, and a slave, be able to write it fluently and correctly?